


Zen and the Art of Sexuality

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Boys Kissing, M/M, Sexual Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-05
Updated: 2009-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-29 22:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17816678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: Takes place after Oz returns to Sunnydale, and finds Willow has not waited for him.





	Zen and the Art of Sexuality

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fadednegative](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=fadednegative).



> For fadednegative who requested:
> 
> Can I get a little Spike/Oz action? *winks* I'd love you forever and ever *giggle*
> 
> I give you a PG 13 (okay maybe R if you count Spike's language. I'm getting rather inured to cussing the more I write the boy.)
> 
> Takes place immediately post "New Moon Rising" BtVS season 4. And really isn't as pretentious as my title makes it sound. Promise!

The Bronze closed around Oz like a comfortable old jacket. He supposed that if he hadn’t known this place, and associated it with happy memories, he would have known another – the Bronze had to exist or he would invent it.  
  
Willow, too, he supposed was half his invention. The perfect high school love, waiting like a princess in a pink dress for him to return from his quest. Dating a girl now. How could he have missed such a part of her? Was sexuality an intrinsic part of character? Did it have an odor, a taste? Was Willow always aware of her interest in women, even when she wasn’t? Do these things make up our a priori selves?  
  
Oz said, “Huh,” and waved to Jerome, the bartender. He raised one finger, then two. The bartender gave a thumbs up. They had a system.  
  
No, Oz knew he’d bungled this one. Willow wasn’t a video-game princess, changelessly waiting in passive pixels. She was a real person, with her own life. A life he’d nearly ripped to shreds in blind testosterone-fueled rage.  
  
The Bronze didn’t smell of  _her_  at least, that soft, patchouli and tie-dye wicca smell.  
  
But as he raised his glass to his lips, he smelled something else familiar. Preserved death, not yet decayed, bloodless and dusty: vampire. In this instance overlain with tobacco smoke, leather and the sharp vinegar of hair dye: Spike.  
  
Oz didn’t feel like fighting for his life, or fleeing. He was pissed that his commiserating drink was interrupted by his duty to protect the innocents around him. He turned and glared at the vampire.  
  
Should have just driven out of town. Shouldn’t have stopped for a drink. Sunnydale sticks to you, like dukkha, the Buddhist suffering of desire. Well, that’s what he was doing here, really, suffering from desire.  
  
The vampire slapped down a stack of twenties. “I told you I’d pay up, didn’t I?” he said to Jerome. “Now make with the jack, jack.”  
  
Jerome rolled his eyes and counted the money.  
  
Then Spike glanced at Oz, and inclined his head in a little nod. “Wolf,” he said, like Wolf was his name.  
  
“I’m not going to let you hurt anyone,” Oz said.  
  
Spike paused in the action of reaching for the shot glass Jerome set down for him and gaped at Oz a moment. Then he cracked up. “Hurt anyone? Oh, that’s rich. Thanks, mate. Oh, that takes me back.” He tossed the shot into his mouth and slammed the empty glass down, still chortling.  
  
Obviously, Oz has missed a memo somewhere. Not the first of this week. He glanced at Jerome, seeing if there is some clue there. His old friend just shrugs and heads down the bar where a busty college girl is waving a five to get his attention.  
  
“That’s gratitude for you,” Spike said. “I mean, I didn’t have to lead your plucky gang of do-gooding friends into the Initiative to spring you. Well, I  _did_  have to pay my bar tab, but still, ‘s thought that counts, right? Oy! Sparky! Another round here! That barely wet my whistle.”  
  
Interesting. Spike knew about the initiative and may or may not be on friendly terms now with Willow and Buffy. Oz filed that knowledge away. “Riley Finn rescued me,” he said.  
  
“Well.” Spike grimaced. “Good on Captain America. Could have used a little of that moral ambiguity on his part when his mates were shoving metal bits in my head.”  
  
Spike caught Oz’s expression. “Yeah, I was there, just like you. White tile rooms. Fun. ‘Course I escaped all on my own, ta very much.” Spike saluted himself with his next shot.  
  
Oz looked down at his “usual”, provided by Jerome, comfortable and sure, as though it hadn’t been a year since he last ordered it. A Magic Hat IPA and a whiskey sour sidecar, friendly as ever. But Oz wasn’t thinking about beer, he was thinking about vampires and werewolves and witches, and how they weren’t supposed to feel like just boys and girls, making their messy way through life.  
  
Even the big bad villain comes back and just pays his bar tab in front of you, like he’s Joe Anybody.  
  
And said Joe Anybody turned, holding his shot glass aloft, and said, “Here’s to freedom! And may the military sod the fuck off!”  
  
Oz, after a moment’s hesitation, lifted his beer to meet Spike’s shot glass. Then he watched the vampire toss the whole shot down like other guys would take a breath. “Something happened,” he said.  
  
“Too right something happened.” Spike went back to demanding more shots for a while. Jerome gave Oz a look that said this is how the just-settled bar tab started, and brings over the bottle.  
  
Finally satisfied with the amount of rot gut in front of him, the vampire settled onto the bar stool next to Oz’s – obviously forgetting the guy rule about leaving one empty stool between any two guys who aren’t already soused.  
  
“They put this chip in my head, means I can’t hurt people,” Spike said it like they’d taken away his dog, or his dad. “Old Rupert had me chained up in his bathtub. His soddin’ bath tub!  _You_  want to see that wanker take a piss?” Spike gestured emphatically. “So what’s got you down, dog-boy?”  
  
“Love,” Oz said.  
  
Spike nodded, slowly. He raised his bottle. “Love,” he said, momentously, and raised the bottle to his lips. His throat worked a long time, the bottle bubbling like a water cooler. When he came up with a gasp, it was half empty.  
  
“Handy,” Oz said, talking about the vampire’s ability to go without breathing.  
  
“Love’s a killer. Throws your brain and your guts out the window, makes you its slave and then leaves you in the gutter.”  
  
“I’m inclined to agree.”  
  
Oz always liked talkative people. You can sort of zone into their world through their words, think whatever you like, and they don’t expect you to hold up your end of the conversation. So Oz ordered another “usual” and settled in to Spike’s take on life. A selfish take, and a careless one. Oz supposed he should feel anger, toward Spike’s crimes, or at least toward Spike kidnapping Willow – though his traitor heart cares more about the fact that Willow kissed Xander. Hearts are terrible mediators for morality. Stoicism, all the way, Oz thought, and nodded as Spike handed over the last of his cash to Jerome.  
  
They ended up on the couch under the stairs, passing a bottle of jack and a joint Oz had handy. The booze and dope loosened Oz’s tongue, so that during one of Spike’s longer pauses, he asked, “Does it bother me to be replaced, or does it bother me that she’s into girls now? Do I feel rejected on behalf of the entire Y chromosome?”  
  
“Rubbish. Rejected is rejected. If it was a bloke, you’d be wondering about how he’s taller or he’s stronger, or he has antlers.” Spike gestured with the now-empty bottle. “The biggest difference is this is a girl, so that’s what you’re hung up on. But it isn’t about what’s different. It’s not them, it’s us. Sorry bastards we are.”  
  
Oz nodded. Spike was slouched way back in the yielding leather of the couch, definitely looking a shade near drunk. Oz shifted, bringing both his knees up onto the seat. He leaned over and pressed his lips to Spike’s.  
  
It wasn’t as grand and romantic as he’d intended, but you can’t just jump into a kiss like that, you need the first wading step, so it was really more of a press than a kiss, closed lips compressing to closed lips. He pulled back to see Spike staring at him warily.  
  
“What was that?”  
  
“Curious,” Oz said.  
  
“About me, or about joining Red on the other side of the fence?”  
  
About both, Oz thought, and about whether sexuality could be tried on, and if fitting changed, like hair color. Also he thought about the long, slow way Spike emptied that bottle of Jack and whether any man could deny the blush of sexuality there, nascent and pure, that everything Spike does looks like sex, like every object he touches can be considered lucky to have been there.  
  
Out loud, he said, “If vampires make good kissers.”  
  
The wary look melts into something very sexy, lips parted. “I’ve always thought so,” Spike said.  
  
And Oz leaned forward again, and this time it was the plunge-in kiss, open and deep. Hands and arms and legs all fell together like a well-planned chord progression. Spike’s mouth was cold, not just room-temperature, the temperature of the alcohol just drunk, and tasted of it, clean and fresh as glass. His hands were warmer, smooth, firm, gliding, holding here in there, practiced.  
  
When they parted again, Oz asked, “Do you play keyboard?” Spike shook his head, looking slightly confused. Oz smiled and shrugged and dove back in for more.  
  
After a while they realized they couldn’t just grope and hump and devour each other on the couch under the stairs in the Bronze – not that such things weren’t done on that couch on a daily basis, but there is a point when even southern California demands closed doors.   
  
Oz climbed off of Spike and righted his shirt. “I suppose we could go back to my van.”  
  
“Yeah, alright.” Spike rolled to his feet.  
  
The stopped, standing together, halted by nothing but the weighty question of which direction to turn, who should walk in front. But it was enough to make them pause, and question, and start to feel awkward.  
  
Oz grabbed Spike’s hand. “This way,” he said, and headed for the stage entrance. (He always parked by the stage entrance. Habit.)  
  
“You know,” Spike said, “I might be able to hurt werewolves.” It sounded like he was giving Oz an out just to hope he wouldn’t take it. “I mean, this chip – it doesn’t work on demons.”  
  
“I’ll take my chances,” Oz said, pushing the stage exit with his back as he smiled at Spike, still holding his hand.  
  
“I guess I will too,” Spike replied, and let himself be pulled out into the night.  
  
It felt good, Oz thought, all experimental considerations aside, to be the one pulling. Anything else, he could worry about tomorrow.  
  
FIN


End file.
